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AQA A Level History Revolution and Dictatorship: Russia 1917-1953 (2N) > Chapter 17 - Dictatorship and Stalinism 1929-1941 > Flashcards

Chapter 17 - Dictatorship and Stalinism 1929-1941 Flashcards

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1
Q

What were the two reasons for the brutal repression imposed by Stalin?

A
  1. In order to force through Stalin’s policies and destroy any opposition
  2. Because of Stalin’s paranoid fears for his own survival
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2
Q

What did Party purges look like under Lenin?

A

They usually led to people losing their Party membership, not to their arrest, imprisonment or execution

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3
Q

When did the Cheka change its name and what to?

A

1922-1934 it was called the OGPU (the Department of Political Police)

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4
Q

What does NKVD stand for?

A

the People’s Commissariat for Internal Affairs

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5
Q

What did the NKVD take over the supervision of?

A

The Gulag

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6
Q

What was the Gulag?

A

A network of forced prison labour camps

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7
Q

What happened to the OGPU in 1934?

A

Its functions were transferred to the NKVD which carried out normal police duties and secret police work

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8
Q

What was another form of repression other than arrests and show trials in the 1930s?

A

The enforced famine in the Ukraine was an ‘economic terror’ intended to bring about submission

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9
Q

When did the five early purges and trials carried out under Stalin’s regime take place?

A

1928
1929
1930
1932
1933

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10
Q

What trial/purge took place in 1928?

A

The Shakhty trial

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11
Q

Who was targeted in the 1928 trial/purge?

A

Managers and technicians of the Shakhty coal mine who had questioned the rapid pace of industrialisation.
Five were executed and others imprisoned

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12
Q

What is a likely explanation for the 1928 purge/trial?

A

To warn others not to criticise the Five Year Plans

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13
Q

What trial/purge took place in 1929?

A

Trotsky was expelled from the USSR

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14
Q

Why was this individual targeted in the 1929 trial/purge?

A

While others from the Left Opposition had admitted their ‘mistakes’ to Stalin, Trotsky had never done so

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15
Q

What is a likely explanation for the 1929 purge/trial?

A

To remove the leader of the Left Opposition

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16
Q

What trial/purge took place in 1930?

A

The ‘Industrial Party’ trial

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17
Q

Who was targeted in the 1930 purge/trial?

A

A group of senior industrialists and economists accused of planning a coup and plotting to wreck the Soviet economy

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18
Q

What is a likely explanation for the 1930 purge/trial?

A

To link the Five Year Plans’ economic problems to ‘wrecking’

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19
Q

What trial/purge took place in 1932?

A

Martemyan Ryutin imprisoned; Kamenev and Zinoviev expelled from the Party

20
Q

Who was targeted in the 1932 purge/trial and why?

A

Ryutin criticised Stalin and collectivisation in a long document known as the ‘Ryutin Platform’. Stalin said Ryutin intended to asassinate him and wanted him executed. Kirov and others argued against this. Ryutin was imprisoned for 10 years instead. Kamenev, Zinoviev and 14 others were expelled from the Party for not reporting Ryutin’s document earlier

21
Q

What is a likely explanation for the 1932 purge/trial?

A

To remove Ryutin and purge those suspected of supporting him

22
Q

What trial/purge took place in 1933?

A

The Party purge

23
Q

Who was targeted in the 1933 trial/purge?

A

In 1933, the Communist Party had 3.2 million members, many of whom had joined after membership rules were relaxed in 1929. Over 570,000 ‘Ryutinites’ were expelled

24
Q

What is a likely explanation for the 1933 purge/trial?

A

To try to restrict Party membership to Stalin’s supporters

25
Q

When did Stalin’s policies come under attack and why?

A

At the Seventeenth Party Congress (Jan-Feb 1934)
Some members of the Politburo wanted a slower pace of industrialisation and an easing-off of grain requisition

26
Q

How did Sergei Kirov’s beliefs change?

A

He’d previously been one of Stalin’s closest allies but now sided with those opposing him
His speech at the Congress recieved a standing ovation

27
Q

Why was Kirov a threat to Stalin?

A

He was the leader of the Leningrad Party and had a strong power base there so his popularity was a threat

28
Q

What happened to Stalin’s position and why?

A

His position of General Secretary was abolished and Stalin, Kirov, Zhdanov and Kaganovich were all made ‘Secretaries of Equal Rank’
May have happened with Stalin’s approval as a way to share the blame for the USSR’s problems

29
Q

What happened to the people who attended the Seventeenth Party Congress?

A

Many were targeted in the purges that followed

30
Q

What happened to Kirov?

A

Shot by a man called Nikolayev on the 1 December 1934

Stalin blamed the murder on a Trotskyite threat to overthrow the Party

31
Q

What happened after Kirov’s death?

A

A day after, the head of the NKVD (Yagoda) was given powers to arrest and execute anyone found guilty of ‘terrorist plotting’

100+ Party members were shot and 1000s were arrested and sent to prison camps

32
Q

What happened to Kamenev and Zinoviev?

A

They (and 17 others) were arrested, accused of causing terrorism and sentenced to 5-10 years of imprisonment in Jan 1935

33
Q

What legislative change occured in June 1935?

A

The death penalty was extended from applying to those engaged in subversive activity to applying to anyone aware of subversive activity who didn’t report it

34
Q

How was Kirov’s death used?

A

As an excuse/reason for the regime to begin widespread purges

35
Q

What did the show trials emphasise and what did they help justify?

A

Emphasised the threat to the regime from ‘enemies of the state’ and helped to justify the harsh and repressive methods used by the regime to subdue such enemies. Also used to shift the blame for social and economic problems

36
Q

What did the NKVD do in the months leading up to a show trial?

A

Ensured that the accused signed a confession
Sleep deprivation, beatings, starvation and torture were common

37
Q

What legislative change was made in April 1935 and how did the NKVD use it?

A

It was made legal for those over 12 to be punished in the same way as adults, including the death penalty
The NKVD used this to extract confessions by threatening to charge the defendant’s children

38
Q

When was the first major show trial held?

A

August 1936

39
Q

What was the first major show trial?

A

Kamenev, Zinoviev and 14 others
K and Z accepted responsibility for Kirov’s murder and pleaded guilty to planning Stalin’s murder
Both were executed

40
Q

What was the outcome of the first major show trial for Stalin?

A

It eliminated his old rivals and provided scapegoats for Kirov’s murder

41
Q

When was the new constitution introduced?

A

1936

42
Q

Who drafted the new constitution?

A

Bukharin

43
Q

What was the new constitution intended to do?

A

Celebrate the triumphs of previous years and declare that socialism had been achieved in the USSR

44
Q

What did the new constitution proclaim about the USSR?

A

It proclaimed the USSR to be a federation of 11 Soviet Republics, each with its own ‘supreme soviet’ which met together in the new ‘Supreme Soviet’ that replaced the Congress of Soviets

45
Q

What were five examples of rights set out in the new constitution?

A
  • Each republic had some rights of jurisdiction, including primary education
  • Ethnic groups were promised autonomy within the Union, with support for national cultures and languages
  • Elections every 4 years and voting rights for everyone over 18 (including ‘former people’ (the old bourgeois elite))
  • Civil rights such as freedom from arbitrary arrest, freedom of press, freedom of religion and the right to free speech
  • Citizens expected to work and guaranteed work, plus the right to education and social welfare
46
Q

Were the rights of the constitution followed?

A

No, they were largely ignored
e.g. republics were allowed to leave the Union according to the constitution but Stalin didn’t allow it to happen

47
Q

How did Soviet citizens use the constitution?

A

When making complaints
e.g. citizens complaining about anti-religious discrimination referred to their constitutional right to freedom of religion

AQA A Level History Revolution and Dictatorship: Russia 1917-1953 (2N) (51 decks)

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